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Summary. This chapter looks at the popular medieval historical genre of genealogy in both theory and practice. First it provides an overview of the divergent theories of and attitudes toward genealogy that inform medieval thinking. The significance of genealogy makes itself known in all arenas of medieval culture, from the political to the ...
- Don’t let preconceived notions of the Middle Ages derail you. While the majority of people in the Middle Ages were illiterate, they were actually very concerned with good record keeping in order to protect their rights and possessions.
- If you get stuck going backwards, go forwards. Chances are, you will run into a gap somewhere around the 16th or 17th centuries, when political and religious chaos may have interrupted record keeping.
- Try different spellings. Every area of medieval England had a distinct dialect, which included wide variations in spelling. On top of that, English is a hybrid of two languages (Anglo-Saxon and French) which means that the same surname was often spelled in different ways, depending on who was writing it.
- Reach out to a scholar. In the Middle Ages, official records for both church and state were kept in Latin, which can make them tricky to read. Even if you can remember your high school Latin, the records are complicated by abbreviations, bad spelling, and indecipherable handwriting.
Jun 27, 2017 · The medieval family is in reality diverse, with different characteristics in different times and places. The Middle Ages stretched over one thousand years, from Scandinavia to Byzantium, and incorporated three major religions. There were multiple structural variables as well as contextual ones. Consequently, historians try to avoid generalizing ...
Use this guide for advice on pre-19th century records held by The National Archives that may be of use when looking to trace the history of a family. We introduce some of the major family history sources for the medieval (974-1485) and early modern (1485-1714) periods and tell you how to search for them. Most of the records we cover are not ...
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- Overview
- History of genealogical study
- Oral tradition and biblical sources
genealogy, the study of family origins and history. Genealogists compile lists of ancestors, which they arrange in pedigree charts or other written forms. The word genealogy comes from two Greek words—one meaning “race” or “family” and the other “theory” or “science.” Thus is derived “to trace ancestry,” the science of studying family history. The term pedigree comes from the Latin pes (“foot”) and grus (“crane”) and is derived from a sign resembling a crane’s foot, used to indicate lines of descent in early west European genealogies. Chart pedigrees, familiar to most people from school history books, include arrow shapes, parallel lines, a crinkled line denoting birth to unmarried parents, and the sign = denoting marriage.
Genealogy is a universal phenomenon and, in forms varying from the rudimentary to the comparatively complex, is found in all nations and periods. In this article the history of genealogy is outlined, followed by an account of the work of modern genealogists, professional and amateur, and as organized in associations.
The history of genealogy can be divided most easily into three stages. The first is that of oral tradition; the second, that in which certain pedigrees were committed to writing. The third stage comprises the period from approximately 1500 in western Europe and later in the English-speaking world, during which the whole basis of genealogy widened t...
In the early days of civilization, before written records were made, oral traditions were necessarily important. Without the art of writing, reliance must be placed on memory, aided possibly by mnemonic systems like that of knot arrangements used by the pre-Hispanic Peruvians, or beads employed by the Maori of New Zealand. The ancient Scottish sennachy, or royal bard, could recite the pedigree of the old Scots kings at the latter’s inauguration, and the nobles of Peru, who boasted a common descent with the sovereign, were able to preserve their pedigrees despite the complexity resulting from the practice of polygamy. Oral transmission of genealogical information is almost always as a list of names—the lineages of the ancient Irish kings, for example. Events of outstanding importance are occasionally incorporated in such lists.
Numerous Asian genealogies appear in the Bible. A cursory examination of these will reveal that they belong to the first and second stages in the history of genealogy, as described above. The systematic keeping of genealogical records, as in Europe since 1500, did not occur until very recently in Asia and Africa.
In southern India the ruling house of the maharajas of Travancore claimed to trace its descent, direct and unbroken, from the old Cera kings of southern India (referred to as independent sovereigns in one of the edicts of Ashoka, the great Mauryan emperor of the 3rd century bce). A claim that inscriptions of the rulers of Travancore have been found from the 9th century ce comes from a statement issued by the secretariat of the maharaja of Travancore. Its reliability may be judged along with the genealogies of princes in northern India shown in Lieut. Col. James Tod’s monumental work, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829, republished 1950). Referring to the lineages of Indian princes as being known since the early centuries bce, Tod wrote, “If, after all, these are fabricated genealogies of the ancient families of India, the fabrication is of ancient date, and they are all they know themselves upon the subject.” The very long Asian genealogies begin as oral pedigrees and were later written down, but they concern only princes or great persons.
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In Africa the one instance of a claim to very long descent, that of the emperor of Ethiopia, bears a similarity to Tod’s Rajput genealogies. The emperor is said to descend from the marriage of King Solomon with the Queen of Sheba. The tradition was written down more than 15 centuries ago; it is therefore older than the history of most European monarchies, but it cannot, of course, be substantiated by documentary proof.
Chapter Six Genealogy: Form and Function in Medieval Historiography With a characteristically indulged pleasure in malice, Gerald of Wales tells the following story of a fellow Welshman, a certain Melerius who, under circumstances somewhat unusual, was gifted with the knowledge of future occult events.
particular species of history in the Middle Ages -that of genealogically in-fluenced vernacular narratives from thirteenth-century France. The literary study of medieval historiography must begin with the recogni-tion that for the medieval chronicler, the events he recorded were also the
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